(Except for the names and the subject of Sander’s sermon, quote is taken from the book, ‘ZEN LETTERS - Teachings of Yuanwu’ - Translated by J.C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary).

It’s because of the arrogant presumption of how much fucking good you think you’re doing by spewing this stuff all over the forum. You think it’s such hot shit that everyone else needs a dose of it, otherwise you’d be happy with personal and subjective observations. Like Stein’s Oakland, however, there is no “there” there. And this is not the not-there you think you’re talking about. It’s the not-thereness of the hot shit that isn’t there, but purports itself to be.

It is hilarious how much ego we see caught up in these attempts to demolish the ego. It is breathtaking how much banality is exhibited in broadcasting how enamored one can become of one’s own self-assessed capacity to breathe in profundity.

I’ve thrown all my support behind Clint Eastwood. Did you see the way he perpetrated the mercy killing in that film he did about the girl boxer? Next: De-regulators of the lending industry. They don’t get a lethal injection. They get their skins flayed and salted.

Oh, wait. I forgot. I’m out of politics. Where’s the Zen in that? Sorry.

“The shortcut of Zen is to leave the present and directly experience the state before birth, before the division of wholeness.” - Zen Master Mi-an (circa A.D. 1100)

Sam Harris comments in THE END OF FAITH:

. . . “It also seems a matter of common sense that the more the feeling of selfhood is relaxed, the less those states that are predicated upon it will arise - states like fear and anger. Scientists are making their first attempts to test claims of this sort, but every experienced meditator has tested them already. While much of the scientific research done on meditation has approached it as little more than a tool for stress reduction, there is no question that the phenomenon of selflessness has begun to make its way into the charmed circle of third-person experimental science.”

(If you have a copy of THE END OF FAITH, read the above paragraph in context, pages 218-220 - paperback.)

“The simple fables of the religious of the world have come to seem like tales told to children.” - Nobel Prize recipient - Francis Crick

“It is time we recognized the boundless narcissism and self-deceit of the saved.” - Sam Harris